


Maternity

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-07
Updated: 2002-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darla, navel-gazing</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maternity

The baby's heartbeat is a small, steady pulse. If she holds very still, she can feel it vibrate through her entire body, even her skin set very slightly atremble. She knows it's not like this for living women. This is not her first pregnancy, not even the first she's carried to term. That time, that one time, that neither witch's herbs nor hot baths nor increasingly dangerous falls had worked--

(_there are other ways,_ Linette whispered, but they'd both seen how Mags had died, and Brown Ruth before that)

\--and it was born healthy, squalling, pink, its fists already jerking, its tiny penis comical, like its tiny hunger, its undersize rage, its red face bloody with birth.

She left it by the road. Other drabs told themselves that it was best that way, that someone would find the babe, adopt it. She knew better. She expected the brat hadn't even made it to a workhouse, or that it wouldn't have survived there long if it had.

She's never regretted it. She doesn't exactly regret it now. But she regrets ... something. That she never wanted it. That no one ever wanted it. Whore's brat, ditch-born, alley-begot. No one had loved it for even one moment of its existence. No one had ever felt this for it, this terror, this fierce passion.

I don't want you, she tells the small heartbeat. I never wanted you. You're an abomination. A human whore's brat would be more welcome in the world than you.

It kicks against the wall of her belly, against her spread hands. She squeezes her eyes shut against the warmth that washes through her.

I don't want you, damn you. Live.


End file.
